The Future of Oak House (formerly the vicarage to St Michael’s Church), Groes Lwyd, Abergele, Conwy, CH22  7SU

We have made two requests for planning permission to convert Oak House, formerly the vicarage to St Michael’s Church, and the derelict coach house into four houses. Unfortunately Conwy County Council have refused both applications. This has left us in a position where we feel there is no alternative but to appeal the decision at The Planning Inspectorate. Please read the full story below.

Building History

The building was built in the 1850’s as a vicarage to St Michaels Church.

In the 1970’s the building was sold by the Church and became Groes Lwyd Nursing Home.

We bought the the building in 2003 and converted it to, and then successfully ran it as a business centre called Oak House.

As with all business models, things change over time, the reduced need for office accommodation due to people working from home, together with other factors, caused the business centre to close.

Our Vision for the Future

We decided the best future use for the building was to return it to residential use.

We commissioned a local architect (Edge Architects) to produce plans to convert the main building into three homes and create a further new home incorporating the derelict out buildings that had historically been used as a Coach House.

We did consider creating flats rather than houses, however, this would have been impractical due to the layout and internal stone wall construction. We also felt the style of the building was better suited to houses.

We were keen to retain the historic building so did not consider the more profitable demolition option.

1st Planning Permission Application

In November 2022 we applied for planning permission. Our application was rejected in July 2023 on two counts, affordability of the affordable housing contribution and loss of daylight to adjacent property.

2nd Planning Permission Application

We commissioned a second report from a chartered surveyor to strengthen our case that showed the proposed project was outside of the scope of affordable housing contribution.

We redesigned the outbuilding extension to address the loss of daylight concerns.

The second planning permission application was submitted in November 2023.

Request for different Planning Officer

The case was allocated to the same planning officer as had dealt with the initial application.

We wrote to the head of planning requesting the case be dealt with by a different planning officer as we were unhappy with the way the planning officer had dealt with our first application particularly in relation to lack of communication.

Our request was declined.

Lack of Communication from the Planning Officer

On 28th March 2024 we wrote to The Head of Planning complaining that our agent has asked the Planning Officer to confirm if he requires any further information prior to decision, but had not had a response from him.

We also asked for the report regarding Affordable Housing Contribution be chased up from the Planning Policy department.

On the same day The Head of Planning confirmed by email that they were still awaiting the report from Planning Policy and that she would chase it up. The Head of Planning also stated that she could not see any significant issues with the application but had asked the Planning Officer for his opinion.

Chasing the Head of Planning

As we had had no further response to our email, on the 16th April 2024 we sent a further email to the Head of Planning asking for an update on the response from Planning Policy and confirmation that the Planning Officer required no further information from ourselves.

The Head of Planning responded advising that Planning Policy had responded confirming that no affordable housing contribution was required. She failed to advise if the Planning Officer required any further information from ourselves. She did however advise that there would be a further delay in determination due to workload.

A Problem with Dates

The report from Planning Policy was dated as received by planning 27th March 2024, the day before the Head of Planning advised they were still waiting for the report.

As the planning department had been in possession of the Planning Policy report for 21 days, which we had been advised was holding up the decision, and as the Head of Planning had stated she could see no outstanding issues we emailed her and asked that she confirm that the planning application would be approved.

A Spanner in the Works

Upon checking the planning portal we discovered that on the 18th April 2024 (a day after my email to the Head of Planning and 16 weeks after the consultation period had ended) that the Conservation Officer had decided to review the application

This email states “I do have some concerns regarding the outbuilding extensions. I have no objections to its proposed reuse, however the design needs attention. The layout has been designed to adapt what is there, including the various accretions on the building. The proposed elevations look disjointed, with the flat roofed sections and the pitched roof sections in conflict.”

This email directly contradicts the conservation officer’s previous email 11th December 2023, presented within the consultation period, where he commented “The design of the outbuilding has been altered, I have no objections to its design”.

Time for Action

The Conservation Officers email starts “I have had a chance to review the plans”. This made it very clear to us that the Conservation Officer had been asked to review the plans, we feel this was with a view to finding fault with them.

It was clear to us that this last minute report would give the Planning Officer the perfect excuse to reject the application.

We made the decision to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate before the planning officer had chance to reject the application on the grounds of non determination within the allowed timescales.

Second Refusal

During the early weeks of an appeal due to non determination the planning application is under Dual-Jurisdiction which means the planning department are still able to Refuse or Approve an application.

As we had expected, on the 16th May 2024, the application was rejected due to a report, that we hadn’t been asked for, not being supplied, and in line with the last minute comments made by the conservation officer.

The type of appeal has now change to an Appeal against the Decision and we have sent a document to the Planning Inspectorate outlining our reasons for appeal.

In The Meantime

The site is currently attracting fly tipping, arson attacks and vandalism. As time goes by this project is becoming less and less financially viable.

We fail to understand why the planning department and conservation officer will not work with us to make this vision a reality. We have shown our willingness to work with them, we have, as an example, at the request of the conservation officer, altered the windows from high quality flush UPVC to Aluminium within the outbuildings. Instead of working with us, the planning officer and conservation officer seem to be working against us.

In November 2022, the same time as our original application, we had a similar application being considered by Denbighshire CC Planning Department (Change of use from offices to residential). The Denbighshire application was successful, despite some issues that had to be addressed, because the planning officer dealing with that case worked with us to achieve a positive outcome. The Denbighshire project is now well underway and by Autumn 2024 will provide much needed dwellings in the Ruthin area.